Among the long term climate sites the IEM tracks, Storm Lake (NW Iowa) was the biggest winner from last week's rainfall with five inches reported over a three day stretch. The featured chart looks into how the event impacted accumulated precipitation deficits for the site. The chart presents the combination of trailing 31, 91 and 365 day departures along with the US Drought Monitor analysis. The chart indicates that each of the deficits were erased with above average values now present at all three time intervals. Of course, having positive precipitation departures does not necessarily indicate that drought conditions are still not present as things like local hydrology (river flows, lake levels, and soil water) take time to recover. We could certainly take a few more of such events this cold half of the year to help get soils replenished for next year's growing season.

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